


Rooting Through to the Ground

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Eregion, Huan is clearly not a dramatic irony delivery service on four legs, M/M, Nargothrond, Noldor think skillful craftsmanship is functionally equivalent to sex appeal, Tyelpe "risk-aware" does not include "oh he's a Maia it'll be fine", Tyelpe's Poor Self-Esteem: The (Abridged) Novel, aman - Freeform, mentions of knifeplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Celebrimbor received praise and one time he believed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooting Through to the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Do you know what pairing has a criminally tiny work count in this fandom? Annatar/Celebrimbor. Excuse me while I help try to fix that.
> 
> So many thanks to Juliana for the idea of this fic format! I laughed when you mentioned it. And then I cackled wildly and actually went and wrote it.
> 
> Notes on names: Quenya names are used in narration where sections are set in Aman; Sindarin for those set in Middle-Earth. Tyelpe/Tyelperinquar is Celebrimbor; Tyelkormo is Celegorm. And _Casarrondo_ is Quenya for "Dwarrowdelf", i.e. the name the Noldor use for Khazad-dûm (/Moria).

When Tyelpe's mother walked into the brightly-lit salon where he'd curled up with one of the books from Grandfather's library, Tyelpe tried, clumsily, to shove his assignments between the book's pages so that she would not see them.

He hadn't really expected it to work.

"Tyelpe? What are those you have?" his mother asked, sitting down beside him on the couch and resting her own hand over the one of his still clutching the pages he'd half-stuffed into the book.

Tyelpe looked away from her and curled in on himself and didn't speak.

She put a hand to his shoulder. "Tyelperinquar?" She sounded concerned. (She could be concerned when she spoke to his father and received the same news; why did _he_ have to tell her?)

"Will you show me the papers, Tyelpe?" Now sterner, sort of a request and a command at the same time. He slowly pulled them out of the book and pushed them at her, but still remained looking down at his knees.

After a few moments, where he could feel her eyes scanning the pages and the scathing comments scrawled upon them, his mother slid a palm against his cheek and turned him back up to face her, stroking the back of his head through his hair. "Oh, love…" she murmured, and Tyelpe squirmed inwardly against the look in her eyes. "What happened to your language assignments?"

He pulled away from her touch and looked back down at his knees. "I'm too stupid for Atar's lessons," Tyelpe mumbled. Why couldn't she just go talk to him about it? He'd tell her everything, of course. Maybe he'd finally be able to convince her that it was true.

"Tyelpe! Of course you're not stupid!" There it was again. "Your father shouldn't be setting you such difficult material."

Obviously. Because he was too stupid for it.

"Tyelperinquar, you're very intelligent. Don't you remember all the good marks your tutors always give you? They always tell me that you're a delight to study with."

"Atar says they make all the work too easy and says they shouldn't use the same standards for me as Itarillë's tutors do. I've heard him."

Tyelpe was still not looking, but he could almost feel above him the way his mother's lips would press tight together and her eyes turn steely like the metal hardening in the forge.

"Curufinwë seems to be of the opinion that the only standard worth meeting is that set by his own father," she said, with her hands less soft against his shoulder and back then they had been a moment ago. "But you are perfectly skilled and capable without needing to be an additional copy of Fëanáro, Tyelpe."

Tyelpe turned his head and glanced up at his mother from the corner of his eye. His mouth was still a small frown, and the turn of its corners challenged as if to demand proof. It had never yet been given.

\------

"Oh, no, no, no stay back - ! Oof!"

The wooden practise sword in Tyelkormo's hands went flying from Tyelpe's parry, as he toppled to the ground with no grace at all from Huan barreling into his chest.

Tyelpe jumped slightly and took a step back, lowering his sword, wide-eyed as his uncle struggled, laughing, with his enormous hound.

"Oof! Oo - uh - Huan, get off!" He pushed at Huan's insistent muzzle and long, furry body with his hands and arms, finally shoving the dog off of him and wriggling out from where he'd been trapped, while Huan rolled over and begged for his belly to be scratched, tail still thumping against the ground. There was a slight impression in the mud and grass where Tyelkormo had fallen.

Tyelpe's uncle grinned as he pushed himself to his feet. "Well, guess I've gotta hand that spectacular win over to you for once, eh nephew?" He winked, and then with a glance over at his hound, fell back to his knees and obliged Huan, shoving his hands into the tangles of soft fur and rubbing all over his belly.

Tyelpe only frowned slightly, somewhat offended that Tyelkormo would try to patronise him like that. "Not really. You wouldn't have lost your grip on the sword if Huan hadn't hurdled into you."

Tyelkormo's smile seemed to fade for a moment when he glanced up at Tyelpe, but it was back and bright as Laurelin a second later and Tyelpe wasn't entirely sure if he'd just imagined it. "Shows what you know about fighting, little nephew," he replied, clamoring back to his feet again and ruffling Tyelpe's hair in much the same manner as he'd just been petting Huan. "Your opponents aren't going to wait around all sweetly to make sure you don't get tripped up by the environment or anybody else who feels like barging in! I couldn't keep Huan from jumping in, so I lost, so that means it's your victory. Shall we celebrate it?"

Tyelpe smiled at his uncle, but it didn't quite stretch up to his eyes. Even if Huan made Tyelkormo lose, that didn't mean _he'd_ been the one to win.

 

\------

 

Even with the sun blazing outside and a few candles burning inside, little enough light reflected off the stone and the heavy draped fabric that the entire room seemed filled with a heavy gloom.

"I should be thanking you more for how often you come to see me," Gwindor mumbled, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back against the wall with an audible _clunk_.

When he'd first returned, Celebrimbor had been uncertain if what distress he could read in the other man's face was an expression of emotion or simply the outward reflection of the tormented scars stretching across his fëa - but he could tell better now, and the look his friend wore now spoke of a misery so deep it leached weariness into his very bones.

He could never manage to feel as though he knew what to say to that.

"I don't… I don't need any thanks," Celebrimbor replied, haltingly. "It's not like there's any reason why I _wouldn't_ …"

Looking away from Gwindor, down at the almost disrespectfully calm and luxurious bedding they sat upon, he felt exceedingly useless.

Gwindor's voice was harsh, scratchy in answering, though infused with whatever small warmth he could muster. "And you think there is no loyalty in you," he said. It made Celebrimbor look back up at him, all tense guarded stillness. "Somebody of such a poor nature would not visit me still." And then he snorted, bitter and cynical and pained. "Even those of a usual kindness have seen fit to leave me shut up in here and fill my council seat with whispers."

"Would you like me to get you a glass of water?" asked Celebrimbor softly. "Or wine?" The latter he was not sure was necessarily the wisest of offerings, but…

"I told her the other day what his true name was, you know. And he was wroth with me, as though there were more harm in the telling than in the state that was told of."

Celebrimbor said nothing, simply waiting for what else Gwindor wished to relieve his mind of. He would have been more at ease finding some tangible thing to comfort him, but he could not say he knew what might help, no better than anybody else did.

"I cannot act as though my loyalty is tied only to his selfish whims and not also to the safety of those I love," he continued.

Celebrimbor did not find he could fault Gwindor for much, these days, and so he only nodded once, solemnly.

 

\------

 

The dwarf - what had the apprentice said his name was? N - Narvi? (he hoped) - was staring. No, more like _scrutinising_ , with all the crafting-lore that his people had amassed from Aulë's talents and Aulë's gifts and their own prodigious skill. With a face that was growing to look something like horrified. And it was the only piece of his own that Celebrimbor currently had in his position and found half acceptable…

When the dwarf looked up at him, Celebrimbor nearly flinched.

"This is brilliant," he pronounced, gesturing to the bracelet.

Now it was Celebrimbor's turn to stare.

The dwarf met his eyes for a moment, and there was a flicker of curiosity in them, before he turned back to Celebrimbor's work and starting off on a rambled elaboration of a whole list of features he thought remarkable - the colour and shine of the metal (alloys), the particular cut of the gem facets (application of two existing techniques in concert), the tiniest of detail-work in the band links (no different from what he'd been instructed in back in Formenos and Himlad).

Celebrimbor wished he'd be over with it so they could discuss the plans for working with the craftsmen of Casarrondo as was the intention for this meeting.

And he got his wish soon enough, when the dwarf faced Celebrimbor once more, and with an excited gleam in his eye, said, "So, it certainly looks like what I was told of you was not exaggerated. But now tell me what you know of _mithril_."

 

\------

 

"You've a kindness in your spirit that suits that man not. And I can see plain in how he watches you that he wishes for nothing more but to drive it out. Replace it with a petty lust for treasures and beauty and mastery over things you've no business commanding."

She shook her head. "You should be rid of him."

The expression Galadriel wore was grave, with worry and frustration and care. The silver in her hair glinted almost like the gold in the light of the candles, and he half felt he was a second playing of storybook events, stepping in the same deep, wide impressions of boots in the earth and finding his own feet half the size.

Celebrimbor smiled at her, a soft polite shell for a grimace. "I'm not kind, lady."

Foolish of her, so foolish, to think he might be taken in by simple words praising some nonexistent goodness he might possess. If her words had been true, after all, wouldn't he not understand that what she truly wanted was to keep her power and influence? To use _concern_ for him, and how he would trail after her beauty like a beaten dog, to do so? Wouldn't he not still wish for her to give a regard, a love, that she had indicated so coolly no intention of bestowing upon him?

A grandson of Fëanor was not one who would be kind.

 

\------

 

"Absolutely beautiful," said Annatar. His eyes shone almost golden-bright, matching the tone in his voice of awe, hungry awe, that Celebrimbor could recognise easily. So very easily, as the feeling welled within him as well, less intense but still present, drawn out from the dark spaces he'd shoved it away into to join the longing in his companion's expression.

Celebrimbor might have protested, any other time. It was too simple, there were flaws in the moulding of the metal, it was not perfectly balanced - but this time he brushed his fingers over the wrought pendant, and he could almost sense the swirl of power beneath its surface. And so protesting - he found he did not quite wish to.

Under Annatar's gaze - something like pride, and his face flushed slightly. Was this some sliver of how his grandfather felt, brimming with admiration for his own creations? For a moment he could almost see some future vision of himself in his grandfather's place; skilled, adored, fierce and fiery and lovely…

"Beautiful," Annatar repeated, a murmur now, and brushed the pendant himself as Celebrimbor had done. Slow, languid, appreciative; and their hands pressed gently beside one another, stilling.

With the movement of a slender hand beneath Celebrimbor's chin, Annatar tilted his face up slightly, and then slid a warm, heady kiss against Celebrimbor's mouth.

The room here was - well, it wasn't _not_ private, but neither would Celebrimbor expect no interruptions while he worked here… The part of him that would normally worry incessantly over such things had been somehow quieted, though, and he could not say he quite minded. He let out a soft, appreciative sound and parted his lips beneath Annatar's, rewarded by a swipe of his tongue gently over his bottom lip, and when Annatar hummed (pleased? amused?) and Celebrimbor let one hand rest, pushing slightly, against his hip, Annatar thrust his fingers through Celebrimbor's dark curls to cup the nape of his neck.

The heat that Celebrimbor felt inside himself could have well powered his forge of its own accord.

"Do I get something for making beautiful things?" Celebrimbor asked, slightly breathless from lust and the shock of the question's boldness; an exhilarated anxiety fluttering in his chest and forming words before he could snatch them back down, as if he were drunk. He did not truly believe that anything he made could be described so - did he? Yet he looked for the jest in his question and found nothing.

But Annatar only fixed him with a curious expression, almost a mischievous curl of the corners of his lips into a smile. "Have I not been lavishing you with gifts enough for all the skill you've leant me use of, all the marvelous pieces you've made for me, that you should know the answer to that by now?" he murmured, voice silken and hinted with laughter. "Do I not favour you sufficiently; do I not live up to my name?"

"Of course you have," Celebrimbor reassured him hastily and eyes widening, before his cheeks began to burn with the fresh memory of the previous night (Annatar's heated skin on him, in him; Annatar's knife held above his wrists so he might just barely feel the steel's caress, and hold his arms perfectly still above his head as the rest of him trembled and gasped - _oh, but you cannot mar your pretty crafter's hands, love_ , lips pressed like liquid against his ear - )

With a fluid grace of his hands, Annatar drew a chain holding Celebrimbor's creation about his neck so that it fell cold and heavy just against his collar bones, and then he bent his head to fix his mouth, slick and sharp, just above the jeweled pendant against Celebrimbor's neck. 

Celebrimbor sighed again - or was it a gasp? - his senses felt sharper and the blood rushing in him more powerful with the hum of the pendant; he closed his eyes, and then a moment later his entire body arched of its own accord as Annatar palmed him through the cloth of his trousers.

They careened, an awkward movement of jumbled touches and limbs and frayed steps near to falling, and Celebrimbor found himself pushed backward into his small workbench with a jangling clatter of wood and stone, and then to sitting atop it.

When he leaned back, head and back pressed to the wall, and the edge of the workbench digging into his hips, and his legs tangled around Annatar's, it was almost as though he could feel every ridge of the stone, every mortared dip where two of the bricks met.

He panted a near constant stream of cries and moans into Annatar’s touches. For once, there were no thoughts that he might not be worthy of such affection.


End file.
